Zia assassination: How Major Mozzaffar was identified

During the July mass uprising, International Crimes Tribunal's investigating agency conducted a forensic analysis of the mobile phone belonging to Masud Uddin Chowdhury, who had been arrested in a case involving alleged crimes against humanity. The analysis uncovered several suspicious phone numbers, which were sent to the police for identification.

Following this lead, police identified and arrested Mozzaffar Hossain (77), a former army officer who had been on the run.

Tanvir Hasan Zoha, a prosecutor at the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), shared this information with Prothom Alo yesterday, Saturday.
Lieutenant General Masud Uddin (retd), a prominent figure during the 2007-08 military-backed 1/11 caretaker government, was arrested on the night of 23 March from his residence in Baridhara DOHS by the Detective Branch (DB) of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).

Separately, the DB announced that on Wednesday night it had arrested retired Major Mozzaffar Hossain (77) from a residence in Banani, accusing him of involvement in the assassination of former President Ziaur Rahman. Mozzaffar had allegedly been a fugitive for 45 years. The following day, Thursday, he was handed over to the Military Police at Dhaka Cantonment.

In a DMP press release issued on Thursday regarding Mozzaffar's arrest, police said that he had remained in hiding at various locations since the assassination of Ziaur Rahman. Acting on information from reliable sources and through information technology analysis, DB identified his whereabouts. A DB team then arrested him from a residence in Banani at 10:10 pm on Wednesday.

The press release added that his identity was confirmed during questioning after his arrest. The Armed Forces Division was immediately informed, and at 6:10 pm on Thursday, he was formally handed over to the Military Police at Dhaka Cantonment in accordance with the relevant legal procedures.

International Crimes Tribunal prosecutor Tanvir Hasan Zoha has provided an account of how Mozzaffar Hossain was identified. According to him, a certain individual had communicated with Masud Uddin Chowdhury using multiple mobile phone numbers and had also exchanged text messages with him. It was through this trail that police ultimately identified and arrested Mozzaffar.

On 7 May, Tribunal-2 ordered that Masud Uddin Chowdhury, a former member of parliament for the Feni-3 constituency, be shown as arrested in a crimes against humanity case. The tribunal also granted investigators permission to interrogate him in connection with the case.

Speaking to Prothom Alo, prosecutor Tanvir Hasan Zoha said that, as part of the investigation, the tribunal's investigating agency conducted a forensic examination of Masud Uddin's mobile phone. Investigators also obtained its Call Detail Records (CDRs), that is, detailed records of everyone who had communicated with Masud Uddin through the phone.

The CDRs showed that, since 2023, a single individual had made calls to Masud Uddin and exchanged SMS messages with him using multiple phone numbers, all from the same locations in Banani and Mirpur DOHS in the capital. The phone conversations were very brief. Investigators later found that the SIM cards had been registered under false identities.

According to Tanvir Hasan Zoha, the International Crimes Tribunal's investigation agency and prosecution team were initially unable to determine who had used the suspicious phone numbers to communicate with Masud Uddin Chowdhury. He said that, for this reason, the investigation agency forwarded the numbers to Police headquarters, after which the police carried out their own investigation. That investigation ultimately revealed that the individual who had contacted Masud Uddin from multiple phone numbers was Mozzaffar Hossain, the former army officer who had been a fugitive for 45 years over allegations of involvement in the assassination of Ziaur Rahman.

In the early hours of 30 May 1981, a group of renegade army officers assassinated then-President Ziaur Rahman at the Chittagong Circuit House. Ziaur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), had traveled to Chattogram the previous day to help resolve internal disputes within the party.

According to various historical accounts, narratives, and books published about the assassination, Mozzaffar was among the armed army officers who went to the Chittagong Circuit House in the early morning of 30 May 1981. He was reportedly beside Ziaur Rahman at the moment of the killing. After the assassination, Mozzaffar fled, and authorities announced a reward for information leading to his capture.

ICT prosecutor Tanvir Hasan Zoha said, "In reality, it was the police who did the actual work of identifying Mozzaffar. We were simply had the suspicious phone numbers."